Your browser is no longer supported

Farrell: ‘I never compared Johnson to Hitler’

Terry Farrell has hit back at claims that he likened Boris Johnson to Hitler

In a letter to the AJ, Farrell said he wanted to ‘set the record straight’ after he was quoted by the Evening Standard apparently comparing the London Mayor to Adolf Hitler.

Farrell was interviewed by the paper about the Mayor’s preference for an estuary airport and was quoted as saying: ‘When people say that you have got to have vision, well Hitler had vision. Vision can be a madness where you get so obsessed you throw everything you have got on the roulette table and hope you got it right.’

In his letter to the AJ, Farrell wrote: ‘In the course of the Evening Standard interview, at no point did I compare the Mayor to Hitler and it would never ever have crossed my mind to do so. It’s a lesson, I suppose, to be very cautious indeed in referring to a historical figure, however obliquely, in the same conversation as when referring to living people.’

He added: ‘I was actually referring to a recent book by Deyan Sudjic called the Edifice Complex and his theories regarding architecture and power.’

‘London’s two Mayors have been a force for good for London’s planning and architecture. Mayor Johnson has and does put ideas and projects forward with great verve and commitment and London really needs a Mayor that does this. He has my full support to keep doing so, even when I’m not in full agreement with some of his projects all of the time.’

Earlier this month Boris Johnson confirmed the proposal to create a huge four-runway mega-airport on reclaimed land on the Hoo Peninsula was his ‘first choice’ ahead of his ‘second choice’ - a possible expansion at Stansted. A third option, to build a huge ‘Boris Island’ much further out in the estuary, has effectively been ruled out.

However Farrell, who has recently been appointed to investigate the potential for a second runway at Gatwick, has been a long-time critic of plans to build a super-hub airport east of London.

The architect was quick to lay into Norman Foster’s proposed Isle of Grain airport in 2011 at the time advocating a new rail hub connecting existing airports in west London - a concept dubbed the ‘constellation’ approach.

Subscribe to the AJ

The Architects’ Journal is the UK’s best-selling weekly architecture magazine and is the voice of architecture in Britain

About the Architects' Journal

The Architects' Journal is the voice of architecture in Britain. We sit at the heart of the debate about British architecture and British cities, and form opinions across the whole construction industry on design-related matters